Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Look at that cast. Gary Oldman. Colin Firth. John Hurt. Toby Jones. Benedict Cumberbatch. Any movie like that should be a tour de force in acting. It should grab you by the neck and refuse to let go. It should be like a bolt of lightning to the heart. Now, take that cast and put them in a movie similar to 70’s espionage thrillers. Only take out the action. Take out sense of danger. Take out the edge-of-your-seat momentum provided by the tension of the situation. Take out any form of storytelling that makes linear sense. Replace it all with a narrative that jumps back and forth in time more often than Pulp Fiction and 12 Monkeys combined. Replace it with old Englishmen slowly, patiently questioning people and doing research. Replace it with a story that never ratchets up the tension, leaving the viewer lurching along in the languid first year the movie opened with. That’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.